First Performance of _Society_--Success of _Ours_, _Caste_, and
_School_--How Robertson turned to account the Talent of his Actors, John
Hare, Bancroft, and Mrs. Bancroft--Progress in the Matter of
Scenery--Dialogue and Character-drawing--Robertson as a Humorist: a scene
from _School_--As a Realist: a scene from _Caste_--The Comedian of the
Upper Middle Classes--Robertson's Marriage, Illness, and Death--The "Cup
and Saucer" Comedy--The Improvement in Actors' Salaries--The Bancrofts at
the Haymarket--Farewell Performance--My Pilgrimage to Tottenham Street.
That evening of the 14th of November has been described to us by several
eye-witnesses, so that we are able to realise the feelings that prevailed
both on the stage and amongst the audience. The first act seemed gay and
lively, with a sort of mordant raillery in it with which the audience was
unfamiliar. Then came an idyll, evolving amidst the trees of a London
square. What! love--youthful, tender, tremulous love--in the very heart of
this city of mud, fog, and smoke! Love, so near that you might touch his
wings! This was the kind of impression it evoked--an impression that
pleased and moved the more, that the public, always over-curious
concerning the private life of its favourites, was acquainted with the
tender relations of actor and actress. It was a real "honeymoon"--the
full moon which shone on this love duet from over the shrubbery of
coloured canvas. The hearts of the audience went out to them, and all was
well.
But no one could say what sort of reception was in store for "The Owls'
Roost." This "roost" was a picture from the life of the clubs which I have
already described as the principal resorts of Bohemia. Now, the
"Savages"--the members, that is, of the Savage Club--as well as the
frequenters of the Garrick, the Fielding, and the Arundel, were all there
in force. How would they take this caricature of themselves? The laughter
which broke out in uninterrupted peals soon reassured the anxious ears
behind the scenes.
There is a point at which one of the chief characters is at a loss for
half a crown wherewith to pay for the hansom in which he is going off to a
ball. Having no money in his pocket he asks a friend for the sum. "I
haven't got it," the friend replies, "but I'll see if I can't get it for
you." He asks a third, who makes a similar reply; and so the appeal makes
the whole round of the club, until at last a half-crown is found in the
depths of a pocket, and is passed on from hand to hand, borrowed and lent
a dozen times, to the man who had asked for it in the first instance. The
incident was taken from actual life. Thus reproduced upon the stage, it
seemed indescribably comic, and proved the turning-point in the fortune of
the play--the happy crisis after which everything was greeted with
applause. It was a trivial illustration, but it was thoroughly
characteristic. It was Bohemia in a nutshell--to have nothing and give
everything.
As the "owls" were so much diverted by the faithful portrayal of their
resorts and of their customs, thus presented for the first time upon the
stage, there was no reason to expect that Society would take offence over
the extraordinary and incongruous proceedings at the establishment of Lord
and Lady Ptarmigant. This kind of comic libel was not unknown;--Bulwer,
for instance, had set himself to depict the union of the old aristocracy
with the new, the naive veneration displayed by Riches for Rank, and on
the other hand, the prostration of Rank before Riches. No one showed
astonishment at seeing Lady Ptarmigant smilingly take the arm of old
Chodd, though his language and his manners were those of a costermonger,
and though his lordship's valet would probably have hesitated about
letting himself be seen with him in a public-house. As for Lord Ptarmigant
himself, he was just what we call a _panne_. The whole character resolved
itself into a mere eccentricity, as monotonous as it was far-fetched and
extravagant,--a habit of dragging about his chair with him wherever he
went, and of falling asleep in it the moment he sat down, with the result
that everyone who came in or went out could not fail to tumble over his
stretched-out old legs. Who would have imagined that such a role as this
would be one of the causes of the success of the piece, and would be the
means of revealing to London an admirable actor? His name was John Hare.
He was still quite young, and he had wished for this strange role in which
to make his _debut_. Profiting by the example of Garrick, Hare had
realised that an actor does not make his name by giving out a witticism or
telling phrase with effect, but by putting before us a live human figure,
if only a silent figure, in all its eccentricity of brain. His facial
expression was wonderful, and his mimicry excellent;--he had in him the
genius of metamorphosis; he has it still, and gives evidence of it in a
hundred different roles. By a sort of intuition not easy to explain, there
was hardly a spectator who did not divine the future great actor from this
one performance.
The success of _Society_--it lasted for one hundred and fifty nights--was
followed almost at once by the success of _Ours_, which lasted still
longer, and filled the theatrical season 1866-67. Then came _Caste_ in
1867 and 1868. _School_ in 1869 surpassed its predecessors in popularity,
being played nearly four hundred times. In the intervals between these
four great triumphs there were two pieces which, without achieving so long
a run, still maintained in the fortunate little theatre the same joyous
atmosphere of success.
When the "Prince of Wales's," however, had recourse to any other than its
regular caterer, a check in its fortunes was sure to come, and there was
no alternative to falling back on Robertson. And when Robertson tried his
fortune elsewhere, even when supported by a popularity so well established
as that of Sothern, the result was invariably but a _succes d'estime_,
when not a disastrous failure. From these circumstances a certain
superstition grew up. Superstitions are rife in the theatrical world.
Marie Wilton, it was felt, had her lucky star, and Robertson had his, but
the two had to be in conjunction for their benign influence to be exerted.
Perhaps the coincidence may be explained without having recourse to the
stars. Tom Taylor, on the day after a new triumph, wrote to the young
manageress: "The author and the theatre, the actors and the roles, all
seem made for one another." This was quite true, and it may be added, that
the public and the time were in harmony with the spirit of the pieces and
the talent of the performers. Everything had come about as it should; so
it was called chance!
Robertson was not much of an actor, but he was a wonderful reader. When
you heard Robertson read one of his comedies, Clement Scott tells us, you
understood it in all its details. Under the sway of his moving elocution
the actors laughed and cried. The author knew their weaknesses and their
gifts better than they themselves; he knew, therefore, how to make the
most of the peculiar constitution of this small company which formed a
kind of family, closely united by common interests, ambitions, and
affections. Until then a piece was often nothing more than a star actor
planted well in the front of the stage, taking his time and prolonging his
effects, and behind him a dozen or so nonentities mumbling mere odds and
ends of dialogue and addressing themselves to the back of their more
famous colleague. For the first time there was now at the "Prince of
Wales's," an _ensemble_ moulded by assiduous rehearsals and perfected by
the practice of every night.
In _Ours_, John Hare, who played the role of Prince Perofsky, had only to
utter a dozen sentences--hackneyed and affected compliments--yet he made
out of it a really striking portrait of a Slavonic Grand Seigneur, with a
smouldering passion in his heart veiled under the most perfect manners.
Besides his impressiveness there was something enigmatic about him that
set one speculating as to the part he was to play in the plot,--an enigma
to which there was to be no solution.
At length, in _Caste_, Robertson gave him a real role, that of Sam
Gerridge. I imagine, indeed, that author and actor contributed equally to
the creation of this character. The same might be said, perhaps, of that
of Captain Hawtree, created by Bancroft in the same play. Seldom, surely,
has the use of this big word "created" (so often applied in the papers to
the most insignificant performances) been warranted so fully as in these
cases.
Before Sothern's time the man of the world used to be represented on the
English stage as an absurd figure treading on tiptoe while in ladies'
society and ogling them _a bout portant_.
The type had been changed as regards costume, but not as regards language,
from that of the Macaroni of 1770. The dandy of 1840 does not seem to have
found his way on to the stage until 1865.
It was a complete change from this type to the character presented by
Bancroft as Captain Hawtree, humorous but not ridiculous; not in the least
essential to the play, yet attracting a large share of interest and
sympathy. An elegantly languid air, which yet spoke of weakness neither of
muscles nor of character; a blind acceptance of the social code, which was
not incompatible with generous feelings and a sense of humour; a mixture
of soldier-like cordiality and worldly cynicism, which amounted to an
_etat d'ame_ if not to a philosophy: these were some of the features that
went to make up the character.
When circumstances--quite simple and natural--lead to Hawtree's taking tea
in humble East End lodgings, between a little dancing-girl and an old
plumber, nearly all the fun of the scene comes from his mute expression of
continual astonishment. Hawtree presents a curious combination of
awkwardness and goodwill in the scene in which he brings the plates to
Polly Eccles in the pantry to be washed. At bottom it is the attitude of
the English gentleman towards the social question,--somewhat scornful,
somewhat amused, but ready to turn up his sleeves and put a shoulder to
the wheel at need.
As for Marie Wilton, with what wonderful insight Robertson had made out
the real genius of this little woman, whose talents were so real, if all
her ambitions were not attainable! She looked back with horror at her
successes at the Strand; she wanted never again to play a _gamin's_ part
(as we should call it) or to appear in burlesque. Robertson wrote her a
succession of _gamin's_ parts and burlesque scenes. But the _gamin_ was
petticoated and the burlesque scenes set in a comedy. I am not referring
to _Society_, which was not written for the "Prince of Wales's." But what
is it she has to do in the three other pieces? In _School_ she climbs a
wall. In _Ours_ she takes part in a game of bowls, mimics the affectations
of the swells of '65, plays at being a soldier, bastes a leg of mutton
from a watering pot, and as a climax makes a roley-poley pudding, adapting
military implements to culinary uses for the purpose. In _Caste_ her
operations are still more varied--she sings, dances, boxes people's ears,
plays the piano, pretends to blow a trumpet, puts on a forage cap, and
imitates a squadron of cavalry. If this is not burlesque, what is it?
Some months ago I saw her in a revival of _Money_, in which she plays the
role of a woman of the world, and in one scene of which--a scene which
owed much more to her than to Bulwer--she shows the steps of a dance. At
this moment I seemed to see the legs of Pippo moving under the skirts of
Lady Franklin,--those legs which five and thirty years before had made so
lively an impression on the brain of Charles Dickens.
Whether he was conscious of it or not, Robertson made her play Pippo all
her life. These fantastic roles, sketched on to the margin of domestic
dramas, were to have a remarkable and twofold success; they were largely
responsible for the good fortune of Robertson's comedies, and in the
reading of these they constitute, as it were, appetising _hors
d'oeuvres_. If I say to the admirers of _Caste_ that Polly Eccles is an
excrescence spoiling the artistic merit of the piece, they reply at once
that, on the contrary, she is its life and soul; and from the point of
view of stage effect, they are quite right.
The Bancrofts--they married shortly after the opening of the theatre--were
the complements of each other. She was all fun and fancy, harum-scarum,
irresponsible, indescribable. He was chiefly notable for thought, taste,
careful observation, and truthful representation of real life. One of his
first acts, as soon as there was some money in the exchequer of the
"Prince of Wales's," was to introduce a certain amount of intelligent
realism into the scenery. He felt the need of doors with locks instead of
the wretched folding-sashes, which shook before the draughts from the
wings. In _Caste_ he gave ceilings to the rooms. The last Act of _Ours_
takes place in Crimean barracks during the winter of 1855; every time the
door was opened a gust of snow came into the room with a whirl and
whistle, which produced so strong an illusion that the audience shivered.
In the gardens, real flowers were introduced, and living birds. Charles
Mathews was thought very enterprising because he had ventured to have some
chairs placed in a drawing-room upon the stage. Bancroft went so far as to
assign a different character to different suites of furniture. Thus in a
revival of the _School for Scandal_, Joseph Surface's furniture was
different from that of Sir Peter Teazle; his furniture, hypocritical as
himself, seemed to make a pretence of being plain and simple, lied for him
and bore out his lies. As for the actresses, instead of being made guys of
by the theatrical costumiers, they had real dresses made for them by real
dressmakers.
Robertson approved of these innovations, but he was never more than half a
realist, and this from several causes. Like all Englishmen, he delighted
in the warfare of words; he shared with them all, big and little, ancient
and modern, that liking for brilliancy which is perhaps evolved from the
liking of savages for brilliants. Once he began concocting repartees he
forgot all else and gave his pen its head. He made his characters play a
game of verbal battledore and shuttlecock. He dragged in by the nape of
the neck, as it were, tirades whose proper place had been in a leading
article. When he went too far, however, in these directions, he was often
the first to make fun of the result. "What has that got to do with what we
are talking about?" asks a character in _Ours_. "It has nothing to do
with it, that's why I said it." And in the same piece another character
remarks of something that has happened, "If an author put that into a
play, everyone would say that it was impossible and untrue to life."
Thus it was he would forestall gaily, with a sort of impudent frankness,
the objections of the critics. The public enjoys this kind of thing. What
it enjoys most of all, in England at anyrate, is the _grain de folie_, the
lurking, unlooked-for quaintness, which characterises some of their
humorists, Dickens, for instance, and Ben Jonson. It is this quality which
is responsible for their creation of strange types whose ideas and
conversations are all topsy-turvy.
It was in _School_ that Robertson poured it out most plentifully. It was
the most frivolous of his plays, and in this perhaps may be found the
explanation of its success. The heroines are boarding-school girls; they
are just at the age and in the situation in which no absurdity would seem
too great or out of place. By a convention which the spectator agrees to
willingly, they are girls in Act I. and women three weeks later in Act
III. In these three weeks they have learned the meaning of life.
"What is love?" asks one of the youngest in the first scene. "Why,
everyone knows what love is," Naomi tells her. "Well, what is it then?"
asks another, and the first speaker insists that no one seems to know.
Then comes the time for them to pass from vague theory to real experience.
It is the evening, in the orchard. There are two flirtation scenes, one
following the other, full of childishness, but full of _naivete_,
freshness, and charm. There is question of the distance from the earth to
the moon, of the play of light and shade, of a little milk-jug which it
takes two to carry, of the Crimean War, and of Othello. Of love there is
no word, but it underlies their every feeling, hides behind every word,
peeps out through every glance, mingles with the very air they breathe.
_Naomi_: ... "I like to hear you talk."
_Jack_ (_bows_): "The fibs or the truth?"
_Naomi_: "Both. Have you ever been married?"
_Jack_: "Never."
_Naomi_: "What are you?"
_Jack_: "Nothing. It's the occupation I am most fitted for."
_Naomi_: "Oh, you must be something?"
_Jack_: "No."
_Naomi_: "What were you before you were what you are now?"
_Jack_: "A little boy."...
_Naomi_: "Mr. Farintosh was saying at table that you had been in the
army. Were you a horse-soldier or a foot-soldier?"
_Jack_: "A foot-soldier,--a very foot-soldier."
_Naomi_: "And that you were in the Crimea?"
_Jack_: "Ya-as, I was there."
_Naomi_: "At the battle of Inkermann?"
_Jack_: "Ya-as."
_Naomi_: "Then why didn't you mention it?"
_Jack_: "Not worth while, there were so many other fellows there."
_Naomi_: "Did you fight?"
_Jack_: "Ya-as, I fought."
_Naomi_: "Weren't you frightened?"
_Jack_: "Immensely."
_Naomi_: "Then why did you stay?"
_Jack_: "Because I hadn't the pluck to run away."
_Naomi_: "Did they pay you much for fighting?"
_Jack_: "No, but then I didn't do much fighting, so that I was even
with them in that respect!"
* * * * *
_Naomi_: ... "Are you fond of reading?"
_Jack_: "Ya-as. Middling."
_Naomi_: "Did you ever read Othello?"
_Jack_: "Ya-as. But I don't think it nice reading for young ladies."
_Naomi_: "Othello told Desdemona of the dangers he had passed and the
battles he had won."
_Jack_: "Ya-as. Othello was a nigger, and didn't mind bragging."...
It would be but an ill service to Robertson to give an outline of his
plays. A mere outline would give the impression that they were childish
and absurd, and they were neither the one nor the other. He never invented
a striking situation, so far as I am aware. He never settled (or even
raised) a moral or social problem in any of his productions. He gave all
his attention to the characters and the dialogue. A scribbled synopsis
found amongst his papers reveals his method of character-drawing. He stuck
down three words, one after another--a name, a profession, a ruling
passion, such as love, ambition, cupidity, pride. With these words he
thought he had summed up the ordinary conventional man, as nature had
formed him, and society had reformed or deformed him: a very elementary
but very sane psychology, which he enriched, embellished, elaborated, with
the flowers of his fancy and the fruits of his observation. I have given
some specimens of the former. I may now give some specimens of the second,
to justify the title of half-realist which I have given him.
He wanted nothing better than to be a realist and to reproduce what he had
actually seen. He knew nothing of great ladies, as one may well
understand. When he had to portray them he was obliged to copy from bad
models. His Lady Ptarmigant is a regular _bourgeoise_; his Marquise de
Saint Maur, who learns bits of Froissart by heart and gives lessons in
history to her son, is either a myth or an anachronism. His Hawtree, on
the other hand, is as real as can be; Robertson had met him probably in
the clubs which he frequented. In _School_ he introduced a foolish yet
ferocious usher, who was, it seems, a reminiscence of his youthful
expedition to Holland. His rancour had not become extinguished in the
twenty years that had intervened, and he could not resist the somewhat
brutal satisfaction of inflicting a physical punishment in the last act
upon his old enemy. He used to ask his small boy, whilst walking with him
in Belsize Park, what he would answer to such and such a question? How
would he set about enraging his master? And the boy would receive sixpence
or a florin according to the nature of his reply.
Soldiers, theatrical folk, artistic and literary Bohemians, are painted as
they live, slightly idealised. In _Caste_ we have two specimens of the
people--bad and good--in the persons of Eccles and Sam Gerridge. "Work, my
boy," says Eccles to his future son-in-law; "there's nothing like
work--when you're young." As for him,--well, it was some years since he
worked (as a matter of fact he had lived on his daughters, and not touched
a tool for twenty years), but he loved to see young folk at work. That did
him good,--did them good too. He declaims against the upper classes; but
when a marchioness passes his threshold, he bows down before her, and
conducts her back to her carriage, only to return to his real self,
insolent and venomous, the moment she has gone. When he makes his way to
the public-house to drink, he gives a "business appointment" as his
pretext--"a friend who is waiting for him round the corner." Always posing
and aiming at effect, he uses big words for the smallest matters, and can
produce a tear in his eye at will. He has a few garbled bits of literature
at his command, and makes use of mangled quotations from _King Lear_.
And, wretched actor though he be, he is able, with the aid of filial
affection, to produce an illusion in the mind of one of his daughters.
"Poor dad," says Polly, "he is so good at heart--and _so_ cute."
No money in the house! He has been left at home by himself to mind the
child of his eldest daughter, married to an officer who was well-born and
rich, but who, it is supposed, has perished in the Indian Mutiny. The old
drunkard rocks the cradle, angrily puffing his tobacco smoke in the baby's
face.
_Eccles_: ... "Mind the baby, indeed! (_Smokes and puffs angrily short
cloud._) That fool of a ge'l to go and throw away her chances
(_rises_) for the sake of being an Honourable-ess. (_Goes up centre._)
To think of her father not having the price of an early pint, or a
quartern of cool refreshing gin! Rock the young Honourable! (_Kicks
the cradle._) Cuss him! Are we slaves, we working-men? (_Sings._)
'Britons never, never, never'--(_Snatches pipe from his mouth, throws
it over the fireplace, takes chair front of table._) However, I shan't
stand this much longer! I've writ the old cat!--the Marquizzy, I mean;
I told her her daughter-in-law and her grandson were starving! That
fool Esther is too proud to do it herself. I 'ate pride--it's beastly.
(_Rises._) There's no beastly pride about me! (_Goes up centre, clacks
his tongue against the roof of mouth._) I'm as dry as a limekiln! Of
course, there's nothing in the house fit for a Christian to drink!
(_Looks into the jug on dresser._) Empty! (_Lifts teapot on mantel._)
Tea! (_Turns up his nose. Turns to table, looks into jug on it._)
Milk! (_Contempt._) Milk for this aristocratic young pauper! Everybody
in the 'ouse is saggrefized for him! To think of me, Member of the
Committee of Banded Brothers, organised for the Regeneration of Human
Kind by an Equal Diffusion of Labour and an Equal Division of
Property!--to think of me, without the price of a pot of beer, while
this aristocratic pauper wears round his neck--a coral of gold--real
gold. Oh, Society! Oh, Governments! Oh, Class-degradation! Is _this_
right? Shall this mindless wretch enjoy in his sleep a jewelled gaud
while his poor old grandfather is _thirsty_? It shall not be! I will
resent the outrage on the Rights of Man! In this holy crusade of class
against class, of (_very meekly_) the weak and lowly against the
(_loudly, pointing to cradle_) powerful and strong! I will strike one
blow for freedom. (_Stoops over cradle._) He's asleep! This coral will
fetch ten "bob" around the corner! If the Marquizzy gives anythink, it
can be easy got out again! (_Takes coral._) Lie still, darling--lie
still, darling! It's grandfather a-watching you! (_Sings._) 'Who ran
to catch me when I fell? who _kicked_ the spot to make it well?--My
grandfather!' (_Goes R._) Lie still, my darling!--lie still, my
darling!"
These comedies reveal the date of their composition in every line.
Everybody cries out in them against money, but as against a master. Love
cuts but a poor figure in comparison, though for form's sake it may
triumph for five minutes before the curtain fails. Sam Gerridge, the
virtuous plumber, who acts as counterpoise to the old wretch Eccles, has
concocted a philosophy for himself out of the notices which he has seen on
public conveyances--"First Class," "Second Class," "Third Class," "Holders
of Third-Class Tickets must not enter Second-Class Carriages." As for him,
he proposes to establish himself, and, from being a workman, to become an
employer. John Burns will tell you that this kind of democracy is a
negation of true democracy; in 1868 the formula seemed wide and generous
enough.
In such a manner was it that Robertson, who had wished that the world were
a football which he could send into space with one kick, that the same
Robertson, who, as he quitted those nocturnal symposia at Tom Hood's,
would bring down his stick upon the pavement with a noise that made the
silent streets resound, as he held forth indignantly against
society,--grew in time and unconsciously, though in a manner easy to
under-stand, to be the interpreter of the feelings and ideas of this very
same society. The former assailant now defended the social rank which he
had attained against both the enemies above and the enemies below. The new
strata which came into being in 1832 were now half-way through their
evolution. In 1850 they had been content with melodramas, vulgar farces,
and Hippodramas. In 1865 they asked already for wit, sentiment, satire,
poetic feeling, all flavoured, it might be, with Cockneyism, but this
demand was an indication of progress, and Robertson satisfied it by
writing the middle-class comedy.
The change which took place just then in the life of the dramatist
convinces me that I am right. He hastened to take leave of his irregular
life, and to feel after _bourgeois_ comforts. He worked out for himself a
happiness which made him, like the poor vagabond in the fable, weep for
very joy. The Eve of this new-opened Paradise was a fair German whom he
had met at the house of the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_, whose niece
she was. Robertson did not long enjoy the sweets of this happy land. His
mental and physical powers seemed to die away together. Mrs. Bancroft, who
accompanied him to the first night of _The Nightingale_, saw him, livid
with rage, shake his fist at the hissing members of the audience,
muttering, "I shall never forgive them for this!"
The doctors ordered him to Torquay, where, however, he grew worse. I have
read a letter which he wrote thence to his young wife,--a pitiful letter,
all in little jerky sentences, set in rhythm by the sick man's pants for
breath. Pitiful, yet gay, for he could not give up being facetious. On his
return to London he experienced a literary misfortune of which it was the
lot of little Tommy, then thirteen or fourteen years old, to bring the
news. Father and son looked upon each other with tearful eyes, and
grasped each other's hands. "If they had seen me thus," said the writer
sadly, "they would have had pity." Robertson was wrong. The public should
know nothing of these things. There are no extenuating circumstances for
literary mistakes.
He died some days later. He was only forty-four. A friend who attended the
funeral remarked, lying in the death chamber, its limbs dangling and
disjointed, a doll whose injured stomach gave out sawdust through a wide
opening. It was a doll with which he used to amuse his little girl to the
very end. As for the puppets with which he had so long amused the world,
they were to have a longer life. His comedies were destined to be
continually revived, applauded, and imitated. Out of the six thousand
performances given by the Bancrofts in a period of twenty years which
formed one long success, three thousand belonged to Robertson. He alone
furnished half their repertoire, and that the better half. From the depths
of the out-of-the-way district which it had brought into fashion, the
Prince of Wales's company sent colonies into the heart of the metropolis.
It was by actors who had been brought out in it, as in a _conservatoire_,
that the Vaudeville, the Globe, and the Court Theatres were founded. The
inexhaustible success of _The Two Roses_--of which there will be question
further on--placed the name of James Albery almost as high.
Byron, in his turn, took a leaf out of the book of his old comrade, and
succeeded, in _Our Boys_, in producing a comedy without (or almost
without) puns. _Our Boys_ resembles Robertson's comedies just as a cook
resembles her mistress when she is decked out in her mistress's hat and
gown, or as Cathos and Madelon resemble the Marquise de Rambouillet and
Julie d'Angennes. Even in this unintentionally caricature-like form the
Robertsonian comedy continued to please, and it looked as though _Our
Boys_ would never leave the bills.
The exacting, the fastidious, those who had begun to dream of a purer and
more penetrating art, dubbed Robertsonian comedy "Cup and Saucer" comedy.
The school accepted the nickname, and gloried in it. For the tea-table,
fifteen or twenty years ago, was still the centre of the home, the symbol
of the family, the core of English life, such as it had been formed by the
combination of the spirit of Puritanism with that of middle-class
Utilitarianism.
The name of the Bancrofts remained associated with the "Cup and Saucer"
comedy as long as the movement lasted. As soon as they became sensible of
their favourite author's decline in the eyes of the public they called
Sardou to their assistance. By 1880 the Prince of Wales's had become too
small for them and they emigrated to the Haymarket, which Mr. Bancroft had
reconstructed as it is now, after a new plan, without the conventional
proscenium, with the orchestra out of sight, the stage encased in a gilt
frame like a picture, and no pit.
This last innovation is characteristic. The pit from having composed the
whole arena of the hall, had been moved back bit by bit, until at last it
was confined to a few back benches behind the dress circle. To suppress it
altogether was not so much an act of authority as of emancipation. It has
been said that Mr. Bancroft thought too much of his gentility, and that he
seemed anxious to reserve his theatre for the _elite: Satis est equitem
mihi plaudere_. But even then? After all, it was only a case of an
extremely able man keeping pace with the democratic generation to which he
belonged, in his rise towards fortune and its accompanying enjoyments. He
raised the price of stalls from six to seven shillings, and then to
ten-and-sixpence. The public was evidently able to pay, for the stalls
were always full.
It should be added that, under the management of the Bancrofts, the rise
in salaries was out of all proportion to the rise in the price of seats.
The weekly salary of one actor, continuing to play in the same role, went
from L18 to L60, and that of another from L9 to L50. Mrs. Stirling had
created the role of the Marchioness in Caste at the "Prince of Wales's,"
and received seven times as much for appearing in it at the Haymarket.
Douglas Jerrold said to Charles Mathews: "I don't despair of seeing you
yet with a good cotton umbrella under your arm, carrying your savings to
the bank." Many years afterwards Mathews, presiding over the Theatrical
Fund, recalled this remark, and added, "The first part of Jerrold's wish
has been fulfilled. I have bought an umbrella." Thanks to the Bancrofts
and the managers who came after them, the bank has been in receipt of the
savings of many actors who previously would have been content if only they
might earn their daily bread.
Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft saw the time approaching when the monopoly they had
secured of the works of Robertson would cease to exist; they felt at once
that the vein was being exhausted, and that the new generation would have
new needs. Able and far-sighted, they determined to retire at the zenith
of their success, and if not in their youth, at least in their prime and
in the full activity of their intellect. Neither of them was forty-five
when in 1885 they gave their farewell performance at the Haymarket.
Amongst the innumerable tokens of esteem which conduced to the triumph of
this withdrawal, I shall cite only one. It is a letter from Arthur W.
Pinero, who had belonged as an actor to the Bancroft Company, and who has
taken since then a foremost place amongst English dramatists. He wrote to
his former manager:--
"It is my opinion, expressed here as it is elsewhere, that the present
advanced condition of the English stage--throwing as it does a clear,
natural light upon the manner and life of the people, where a few
years ago there was nothing but moulding and tinsel--is due to the
crusade begun by Mrs. Bancroft and yourself in your little Prince of
Wales's Theatre. When the history of the stage and its progress is
adequately and faithfully written, Mrs. Bancroft's name and your own
must be recorded with honour and gratitude."
I took it into my head not long ago to pay a visit to the little theatre
in which Frederic Lemaitre appeared, in which Napoleon and Count d'Orsay
rubbed shoulders with Dickens and Thackeray, in which there was difficulty
once in finding a seat for Gladstone, and in which Beaconsfield received a
memorable ovation. The Salvationists have succeeded to the comedians, and,
whether or not it be that their trumpets have the virtue of those of
Jericho, these historic walls are crumbling to ruin. The place is empty,
cold, and desolate. It was on an evening of last winter that I stood
pensively under the porch--the porch through which had flowed like a
stream all the elegance and talent of a whole generation. The light of a
gas jet shone mournfully on the notice, mouldy already, "To be let or
sold"; and the rain trickled down on me from a gaping hole whence the
electric light used once to glare upon pretty women issuing in all their
finery from their carriages. My curiosity was not satisfied. In order to
obtain admission inside, I gave myself out as a lecturer in search of a
hall, but the ruse failed. I was told that I should have to pay L4500 or
L6000, and was asked whether this trifling outlay would interfere with me.
I did not pursue the negotiations, and the door remained closed.